Sylvia Cooper: City Ink: There’s plenty going on besides the hurricane

Sept. 16--Woke up Friday expecting wind and rain but saw only blue skies. All week long, the weatherman was predicting rain and 30 to 40 mph wind gusts in Augusta beginning Friday. It was going to be so bad the editor from The Augusta Chronicle called Thursday to say the deadline for City Ink was Friday instead of Saturday because of the storm.

Here on the farm, we were busy all day Thursday getting ready for the big blow. I was filling empty gallon milk jugs with water.

As usual, I was multitasking, filling the jugs and talking on the phone, which my shoulder was pressing to my ear until it slipped and fell into water that had spilled from the hose. I picked it up right quick and dried it off. Then, when I tried to charge it up Friday morning, nothing happened. So I tried another socket. It still wouldn't charge. Then I remembered dropping it.

So I did what former Sheriff Ronnie Strength told me his wife, Patty, did to his phone after he'd dropped it in water. She put it in a bag of rice and left it overnight, and it was back working the next morning. The rice had absorbed the moisture. That's why they put rice in salt shakers in restaurants. Not to dry phones out, but to keep the salt dry, silly.

So now I have my phone sitting in a bag of Uncle Ben's original parboiled long grain rice.

With the early deadline and no phone to call anybody, I thought about not writing anything this week, but I have so much to tell you about the Augusta Commission and Fire Chief Chris James' new billing rates for ambulance service when/if the fire department and its contracted ambulance companies take over completely and run current provider Gold Cross EMS out of town. That's a lot to say, but considering recent decisions by the Region 6 EMS Council, even though Sias called them "hicks," it seems like a done deal.

I also want to tell you about Mayor Hardie Davis' response to my Freedom of Information request concerning his SunTrust credit card travel bills, and Commissioner Marion Williams' tirade over the partnerships the city has with some of the recreation centers and his not having keys to them, although I might skip that since he's been complaining about not having a key to Jamestown Community Center ever since Sammie Sias was first elected four years ago. It stuck in Williams' craw that Sias, whom the street leading to the center is named for, had a key and he didn't and still doesn't.

And I want to bring you up to date on the little red stray puppy.

No Warnings: But first I want to tell you about a book I read just in time for hurricane season. From "The Gulf, The Making of an American Sea" by Jack E. Davis, I learned more than I'll ever be able to remember about the geological formation of the Gulf of Mexico; the conquistadors; the enslavement and murder of native populations; pollution; the man-made ecological disasters that have destroyed estuaries and turned a large part of the Gulf into a dead zone; and hurricanes.

And the thing that made the biggest impression reading about hurricanes was how they came in and killed hundreds and thousands of people who had no warning what was on the way. For example:

On August 1856 on Last Island, also known as Isle Dernier, fashionable people were vacationing at Muggah's Hotel or in houses on the beach. The hotel featured amenities such as bowling lanes, billiard rooms, card tables and a dining room. In the evening, vacationers would dress up and promenade along the beach.

After attending a ball the night before, they awoke to gale-force winds, pounding surf and rain the morning of Aug. 10. The wind tore houses apart, the hotel collapsed and the island vanished beneath a 12-foot storm surge. Some 198 people died, and 203 survived. The steamer that was supposed to carry them to safety was tossed up on the beach.

There are many other more terrible hurricanes that caught people unaware, including the 1900 Galveston hurricane that killed an estimated 10,000 people, more than the combined totals of the 1889 Johnstown flood and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Taxpayers Won't Know What Hit Them Either: An Augusta Commission committee approved ambulance fees proposed by Fire Chief Chris James, who said they were lower than those charged by other companies.

The base fee will be $1,150 to transport someone, plus $16.50 a mile. Folks treated at the scene and not transported would be charged $200. And those who can't pay won't be billed.

The city will accept what insurance, Medicare and Medicaid pay and not bill patients for the rest.

Steven Vincent, the chief operating officer for Augusta's current ambulance provider, Gold Cross, said the base rates are higher than his company charges in Columbia and Jefferson counties. They're less than Gold Cross' rates in Richmond County, but they don't receive a subsidy in Richmond County.

"So now taxes will have to go up to pay for more fire ambulances, and they are getting billed," Vincent said. "But hey, they said they won't send anyone to collections. So what reason is there to pay a bill?"

Vincent said Sias and James have bashed Gold Cross about its no transport fee for more than a year.

"Sias has bashed us at his breakfast," Vincent said. "Now they are coming out saying they are going to charge a response fee. It is absurd. They actually used that as a reason the zone needed to be open, that we were charging people just for showing up."

The Truth Will Out: When Commissioner Sean Frantom told James he was disappointed to have to read in the newspaper details of James' request for proposals for ambulance providers, James said the newspaper was wrong, but it wasn't.

For example, James said he hasn't met with other ambulance companies ahead of the RFP, but Vincent said he's had discussions with plenty of companies.

"I've been informed South Star already told their employees that they met with the chief and have offered him four ambulances 24/7," Vincent said. "They are actually using that as a sales pitch to recruit our employees to come work for them. They are telling them they already have a deal in place to run some of the 911 calls.

"He has met with them. It will come out. It would probably be best for him to just be honest. He needs to come clean and admit who he discussed this RFP with because these people should be disqualified from bidding.

"At the commission meeting this week, Sammie Sias brought procurement up and tried to have her explain how this RFP was legit. She didn't help him because she said 'any company that has met with the county before the RFP is concluded is disqualified from bidding.'"

To Be Continued: Too bad. I'm out of space and will have to catch you up on the mayor's response to my FOI request and the little red stray puppy next week. Do want to say though that he is NOT a pit bull as I at first thought. The puppy, that is. Not at all. And he still needs a home, although he thinks he's found one.

As for Marion Williams, he's sure to have another fit this week I might tell you about.

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